Thursday, October 29, 2009

La Santa Anita Finca: Connections through Coffee

“Now, this land is ours. Every day the work is hard, but now we have something worth struggling for,” Rigo, our nine-fingered Guatemalan guide for the day told us as we stood in front of the coffee toasting house and under a hanging bundle of bananas. This was two weekends ago and my three friends and I went for a two-day visit to the La Santa Anita Finca, a fair trade and organic coffee and banana plantation founded and maintained by a community of 31 families of ex-guerrillas. We walked through a jungle of coffee plants with their sweet, caffeinated beans, banana trees with their huge leaves and their phallic bundles, and trees wrapped in vibrant vines, hoping to learn about the farmers, the history of Guatemala and their role in it, and about how we all fit together into the big picture of the world.




Of the many things this trip has made abundantly clear to me is that we do not live in a vacuum, isolated from one another. Our choices and actions reverberate in the complex matrix of relations in which we exist. In my high school days, I saw how one man’s choice to abuse alcohol and drugs and then to get behind the wheel of a car led to the death of a 17 year-old young man with a very bright future. I saw how an entire community of students and faculty were devastated when two members – one student and the other our dean of students – decided to take their own lives. In my family, I still watch helplessly as my grandmother’s inability to deal with her depression and addictions has visibly aged my aunt and has kept my mother only a phone call away from tears. Whether we like it or not, our actions affect others; there’s no denying it.


What is less clear for me, however, is when the people we are affecting cannot be seen; our choices of the products we buy and the companies that we support. For example, currently I’m wearing a plain-white Levi’s t-shirt that was made in India. I have done absolutely no research on the treatment of Levi’s factory workers in India, but we all know that the worker(s) who made my shirt is not getting that great of a wage, probably barely enough to survive day-to-day. Nevertheless, I unconsciously supported this system with my purchase. Lately, I have been wondering much more about these choices that I make. The meat industry is ugly. The large producers overuse land, feed their animals their own shit, and – worst of all – treat their workers – especially the illegal immigrants they recruit – like they were faceless pawns, expendable and plentiful. Should I be a vegetarian? I’ve asked myself, wondering how much personal responsibility I have in perpetuating a system that clearly can be much better than we currently let it be, both for the workers and for the world as a whole.


I’m not going to get into an argument about economics and the morality of capitalism; such discussions have no real answers and tend to reduce people into large hypothetical numbers. Instead, I’d rather continue with my story with an oversimplified history of Guatemala’s 20th century.


In the several centuries since the Spanish’s first conquest of Latin America, Guatemala has seen only ten years of legitimate independence – 1944 until 1954. Fifty years prior to 1944, the president of Guatemala indefinitely closed all schools to be able to pay for an extravagant party like the heads of state in Europe were able to have. The un-development continued in the early 20th century as another president sold the rights to own the power industry in Guatemala to a US company. The US based United Fruit Company was also able to buy humongous tracts of land throughout the country, roughly 80% of which were unused. In the early ‘30s, yet another president chose to screw the people by imposing a law that required all people who could not afford to pay a new tax to work for 20 days without pay on a large plantation. The walk to the plantation averaged five days, and the workers were forced to bring enough food to last them the 30 days they would be gone. Of course, that was essentially impossible. They needed to buy food to survive, but that would cost them another twenty days of labor. Essentially, slavery was re-legalized.

In 1944, however, the people struck back. The masses had united and, somehow without bloodshed, power was turned over to Jose Arevalo. He remained in office for six years until 1950 when, for the first time in the country’s history, power was peacefully transferred in a legitimate election to Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Arbenz was a true reformer and sought to reinvigorate his country and raise it to its potential. Unfortunately, one of his reforms pissed off the US enough to incite the CIA to organize a coup and kick him out of office four years later. While in office, he purchased all of the unused farmlands in the country to be redistributed to the peasants. Remember the United Fruit Company? Well they valued their land at around $600,000 when they had to pay taxes on it, so Arbenz gave them $600,000 and divided up the land to be given to the poor, landless peasants comprising much of the country. The UFC demanded $13 million for it, and, when Arbenz said no, they went to the US government screaming that there was a Communist in office. Hearing the word “communist” sparked them to immediately take action and, in 1954, the Carlos Castillo Armas was carried into office on the back of the CIA. He undid everything that the previous ten years had accomplished and it was back to business as usual in Guatemala. In 1960, the people finally said, “Enough of this shit,” and took to the mountains with guns and machetes in hand. The civil war would last 36 years.

In 1996, the Peace Accords were signed, though essentially nothing changed. The families with the poder (the power) maintained it, and those without it – especially the indigenous rural peoples – would continue struggling.

The people at Santa Anita, however, were not about to let the previous 36 years of struggle go to waste. They took out a loan for $300,000 in order to buy the beautiful tract of land that is now their coffee and banana plantation. They organized their own, self-sustaining community where they have their own school and they grow and produce all of their own food. The company Just Coffee buys all of the coffee that they can produce and pays them a “fair” price (fair meaning it meets fair trade specifications. It is much better than most coffee producers would earn, but that is not saying much). Now they still find themselves struggling every day, but now without weapons in hand. It is a price they are willing to pay.


We heard much of this story directly from the mouths of the people who are still living it. With our 17 year-old guide Guillermo, we walked through the winding paths of coffee bushes, up and down the narrow mud paths surrounded by green, vivid and verdant. That Sunday morning I tried imagining being able to make this trek every day to pick coffee beans by hand. Within minutes, the heat and humidity had me drenched in my own sweat. I tried to think about my choices. Are they supporting companies like the United Fruit Company who have ruined the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands in the name of a better bottom line? We heard the distant sound of rushing water and continued hiking. Is it my – or our – responsibility to support companies like Just Coffee that strive to do business in a way that benefits both sides of the table? After all, it’s easy to call the actions of a select few ‘evil’ but isn’t laziness the greatest and most insidious evil of man? We reached the waterfall – the goal of our hike this morning. In front of me 18 ft of water crashed into the rocks in front of me, slowly yet steadily changing the shape of the unmovable earth. I decided to strip down to my bathing suit and let the water wash over me. As it pummeled my back, knocking my breath out of me, I hoped that I could be part of its steady stream doing the impossible, moving the unmovable.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Tribute to the Chicken Bus

If you want the most authentic Guatemalan experience you can get for less than 10 Quetzales then you have to ride a chicken bus. Just like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you really never know what you are going to get. These beasts of the bus world would be demobilized and deconstructed on the spot if they had to pass inspection in the US. Nevertheless, these school buses from hell live on to spew their black fumes and carry their low-budgeted passengers through the streets of Guatemala.


You may find yourself standing in an aisle wedged between a family of five on each side. You will gain a whole new definition of personal space as you reconcile your crotch resting on someone’s shoulder and your butt cheeks cushioning somebody else’s face. You will realize that your feet are almost useless as you fail to find a stance that provides a modicum of balance. Your hands cling to poles greasy enough to make the biggest non-germophobe douse his hands in sanitizer. Standing somehow becomes a full body exercise as your arms flex to keep you upright as the bus plows over bump after bump, tightly hugging the winding mountain roads.



Standing there, sometimes for as long as an hour and a half before you can find a seat, you don’t have much else to do but look around. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll get an animal show. You’ll hear what sounds like a baby screaming only to look up at the luggage rack and find an orange cat squeezing its way out of a beat-up and poorly tied cardboard box. He’ll climb above you, confused and frightened, before his own comes along and sweeps him into their arms. Amidst the crowds, sometimes the clucks of chickens will be audible and you’ll look over to find a woman casually holding a hen in her arms as the bus roars onward. Other times as you’re boarding you’ll hear a pig squealing. You’ll think you’re crazy. After all, you’re in the middle of the city. But then you’ll look up, and sure enough, you’ll see a pig scared shitless tied to the luggage rack on top of the bus.


If you are Christian and feel bad about missing mass one weekend, board a chicken bus. About one out of every three rides you will receive a complimentary sermon. A man, who will be sitting in his seat, looking just like everyone else, will prove to be far from it. He will stand and face his captive congregation. For thirty minutes straight, his lungs will bellow syllables that pierce through the deafening noise of the bus’s engine. He’ll speak of salvation. He’ll speak of bettering the world. He’ll speak of God’s love. And – just like with free city tours – if you think he did a good job, he’ll ask for a little tip afterwards.



At the least, you’re guaranteed a live action show as the bus driver’s partner risks life and limb to herd a couple more patrons on. He’ll hang from the open bus door with one hand, using his other to amplify his shout: “Guate! Guate!” or “Antigua! Antigua!” He’ll grab your oversized luggage – be it a large sack full of fresh produce or a duffel bag full of clothes – rest it on his neck, scurry up the back ladder of the bus, and toss it on the roof in under 3 seconds total. Sometimes he’ll jump back onto the front door of the moving bus. Sometimes, if he is too slow, he’ll simply hang from the ladder in the back like a Guatemalan Spiderman. Damn impressive, if you ask me.


Call them loud. Call them dirty and overcrowded. Call them threats to the environment and your physical well being alike. Call them whatever you please. You will not stop the chicken buses, or even slow them down. Things work differently down here. In a country where infrastructure is nonexistent, where personal space is a luxury, and where people make do with the little that they have, these monsters of the road get the job done.



Saturday, October 24, 2009

Let´s Get El Nahual on Its Feet


Money isn’t everything… but sometimes it makes things a hell of a lot easier.


Last week when I went to Antigua, I volunteered for a couple days with the God’s Child Project. The Antigua that most foreigners know has cobblestone streets that intersect each other perpendicularly. It has lots of European looking churches and lots of European looking people. There are police on almost every corner and traffic laws are actually enforced. There are no street dogs and there is no street food. Every other store is a travel agency. It feels like more Guatemala, Disney Epcot style than actual Guatemala.


The God’s Child Project, however, is situated away from the cobblestone streets and away from the eyes of most foreigners. You have to walk up a winding dusty street with a few corner shops, a cantina or two, and some small houses. It is bleak. It is certainly not a road people would walk down for the sake of walking down. The entrance to GCP is modest enough – just a gate and a small mural on the brick wall outside. Once you walk through the gate, however, you enter into a completely different world. To your right, there are medical and dental clinics offering low-cost (oftentimes free) services to the poor families in the area. The building is made of stone – not brick or cinderblocks – and has full windows overlooking the rest of the property. In the same two-story building, there are classrooms that are nicer than many in the States and spacious offices with people wearing button-down shirts and dresses working on new computers. Everywhere you look – on the walls, lining the walkways, and designated patches on the ground – there are flowers, beautifully colorful and exotic. If there aren’t kids running around cheerfully, you can hear the soothing sounds of fountains gently running. On the opposite side, there is another classroom building, made of the same ornate stone. A deliberately spacious stone staircase leads you upstairs where the ceiling is comprised of panels colored by the local kids. There are playgrounds. There is a large cafeteria. There are well-groomed mini-soccer fields. There is a huge outdoor theater with a stage as big as Nova’s auditorium. There are more offices. It’s almost impossible to believe that everything there has been made possible through donations.


When I first stopped in, hoping to catch my friend Meg and her Villanova service group, I was given a full tour by an old man named Frank. Frank was a bit shorter than me, and his long eyelashes made him look younger than his white hair and aging skin. He gave me a tour of the entire compound – and yes, it was a veritable compound – and told me all about its history. It was started about twenty years ago (I believe) by a man who everyone reverently refers to simply as Patrick. Patrick bought the land – a former garbage dump – years and years ago with the intention of creating a paradise for the poorest of the poor children in Antigua. His dream was to give them a place that would inspire them to reach beyond what the world told them they were meant to be. Over the course of some twenty years, he turned a garbage dump into the dream world he envisioned. Now it educates 170 kids between the ages of kindergarten and high school. As an incentive for the parents to send the kids to school – and not send them out to work – it offers low-cost health and dental coverage, food for the families, and even firewood every week (provided that the kids show up to school regularly). When volunteer groups come down, they help build safer one-room houses for some of the families. There is even an office devoted to tracking down children who are victims of child trafficking (not so much sex slavery in Guatemala as much as labor slavery).


As I walked around the GCP, I thought about El Nahual. Every week, our director Jaime gives a “platica” (or a little talk) on a given subject. Three weeks ago, he talked to us about El Nahual’s history. He told us of his days as a younger man and his dream to create a safe place for the most-endangered children of Guatemala. He envisioned a place where they could come to learn and grow; a place that would be a safe haven for them; a place that would give them food, give them friends, and give them purpose. Soon after the civil war ended in Guatemala, Jaime started on his dream. He rented a tiny building with several rooms that would serve as classrooms. He managed to scrap up some desks, some whiteboards, some benches, and so on. Before long, the Manos de Colores (colored hands… think finger-paint covered kids hands) after school program got going to provide free reinforcement classes for kids every afternoon. They started a Spanish school to earn money for the school’s projects and also to invite volunteers to give what they could, when they could. Eventually, Jaime extended El Nahual’s reach to three other schools – La Candelaria elementary school in the countryside outside the city, La Cuchilla elementary school in the city, and Telesecundaria high school only minutes from El Nahual.


El Nahual, however, struggles every month. They are constantly in the reds with their budget. They can only afford to pay a couple full-time employees; the rest – including Jaime who works there full time – work for free. Teaching and office supplies – even the most basic things like tape and paper – are always highly calculated purchases. Volunteers come and go frequently. While most that I’ve met are great people, I’ve realized that it’s impossible to make real, positive, life-changing connections with students in two hours in two weeks. The staff at El Nahual realize this as well, but they lack the resources to offer any incentives to volunteers – free room and board, health benefits, etc – to stay longer. With so much turnover, things can get very disorganized very quickly as well. It is a struggle, but the dream remains kindled.


As I walked around with frank, through the stone tunnels and giant playgrounds, I saw Jaime’s dream come to life. The God’s Child Project, however, has had some twenty years in the making; El Nahual opened a mere five years ago. GCP has already learned to run, but El Nahual is still struggling to find its footing.


Right now, however, there is a light in the distance. El Nahual has almost finished constructing its new school on property that it owns completely. This means that, when El Nahual moves to this new school, they will no longer have to pay rent every month. They will have that much more money to use to better their projects, to grow, and to finally stand strongly on its own two feet.


Now, I’m going to do something out of the ordinary here. About a month ago, the volunteer staff at El Nahual asked us all to e-mail our family and friends and ask them to give what they could to help finish the new school. They need to buy doors, tiles for the floor, pay the workers every day, etc. When they first asked this, I was skeptical. I was not about to ask my friends and family to give money to something if I did not fully believe in that something. After just over a month of being here, I can wholeheartedly say that I believe in El Nahual and its potential to be the sanctuary that far too many kids need here. At the GCP, I’ve seen what can be done when you combine good intentions with the generosity of strangers. It is a beautiful thing. I am now asking you all to give one minute of your time and to click this link http://www.languageselnahual.com/svprogram.htm. If you can give $5 or $500, I’ll leave that decision up to. I swear to you that any little bit you can give will go a long way here and will be appreciated beyond your imagination.


Thank you so much. And don’t worry. This will be the last time I ask you all for money while I’m down here (When I get back home and have none it will be a different story).

Monday, October 19, 2009

Building a Box


There have been a couple of days since I’ve been here that have made me realize exactly why I decided to go on this trip in the first place. Last Wednesday was one of those days.


It started off as miserably as it possibly could have. I woke up at 2 A.M. on a tile floor with the worst headache I’ve had in a long, long time. Before I go on, I realize you are probably asking yourself, “Tom, why the hell were you sleeping on a tile floor?” Well, a Polish woman named Zena – a CouchSurfing friend of my friend Milosz – is studying in Antigua and she graciously offered to let me stay with her free of charge. She seemed nice when I met her and I’m always looking for ways to meet people from other parts of the world, so I thought, Why not?


When I got to her room I quickly assessed the situation and after some complex calculations I realized there was only one bed. Hmmm. She suggested that we split the bed width-wise and she said it so confidently and nonchalantly that I couldn’t imagine why it wouldn’t work. I woke up about an hour after falling asleep and noticed that the border wasn’t so well defined and that there was some encroachment going on. I decided to take my chances with the floor.


I was surprisingly awake after a restless night of futile shifting on the floor. There’s not really a good way to position yourself on tile. I was in Antigua to visit my good friend Meg and her Villanova service-break group, and I spent eight hours of the following day working on a construction site – mixing cement and sawing wood all by hand. Oh, the technology we take for granted.


My second night with Zena I decided to go for the floor right from the get-go. I don’t know if I didn’t eat enough or drink enough water, but that headache was horrible. It was the kind of headache that makes you want to press your fists into your temples; that makes you want to chug vodka until you’re blacked out and aren’t aware that you’re in pain. A couple of Ibuprofens, a bottle of water, and two hours later, I fell back asleep.


I woke up at 8, feeling great but also running late for day two with the ‘Nova crew. I don’t know why I rushed. Like always here in Guatemala, we were off to a late start. We left the God’s Child Project – a veritable fortress of hope, complete with gardens, medical and dental clinics, playgrounds, a theater, and classrooms – and hopped into the back of our caged pickup.


Deciding to follow suit with the Guatemalans, the ‘Nova students abandoned fear –bruised butt cheeks – and chose to stand for the duration of our twenty minute ride. Our pickup rumbled over the cobblestone streets of Antigua’s downtown area and the ‘Nova students giggled about the whole experience. I chose to giggle to myself.

We were working with the poorest of the poor in Antigua and the family we were working with lived in a flimsy, makeshift one room shack. Today, we would be finishing up our work – building a slightly larger and sturdier one room shack. When I first walked through the gate on the street the previous day, I couldn’t process what I was seeing. I walked through the hole in the wall after the sheets of metal were moved and I didn’t even realize I was standing on someone’s property. It just didn’t compute. To my right there were piles of wood and cinder blocks, as there should be on a such a build site. On my left, however, was just a cave of manmade objects. The floor was dirt. There was a bed on the far side. Oh, it’s a bedroom, I thought, not realizing that it was every room. There were shelves. There was produce on the floor. There was a 10” TV. It was impossible to imagine how tough it would be for me to live there.


I was not sure what to expect from the family. Would they be wearing rags? Would they have perpetual frowns tattooed on their faces? Did people this poor look this poor? I don’t even think I expected to see them at all. But they were there, alright, and they were not what I expected. Our first day there, 12 year old Jose Antonio in his SpongeBob shirt wasted no time picking up a shovel and getting in on the action alongside us Americanos. When his five year old brother Melvin arrived from school he wasted no time getting dirty, singing and laughing while he shoveled the tiny amount of dirt and cement that he could. Their mother, Miriam, kept her tiny frame on the sidelines, watching with a look of pleasant disbelief. She could not hide her smile whenever any of us tried talking to her – partly because we sounded ridiculous, partly because she couldn’t imagine why strangers from foreign country were building her a new place to live without asking for anything in return.

The house we were building consisted of a cement foundation, cinderblock bases for the wall frame, sheet rock walls, and a slanted, tin roof to let the water drain. On Monday – which I was not around for – they volunteers dug up the ground and outlined the foundation. On Tuesday – my first day – we mixed cement all morning, started cutting the wood for the walls, and began painting the sheet rock. Wednesday, however, was to be the big day. At the pace we were moving, however, it didn’t seem like we’d finish on time.


We started off the day behind schedule, but thank God for Juan. Juan works for the God’s Child Project and is a one-man, one-room-house building machine. While we silly Villanova kids were talking about things like Greek life and activities at school, Juan was silently working at full steam. While we were casually nailing up the walls, Juan was framing the roof. While we were struggling to put up a window frame – two 2ft. pieces of 2x4 between two beams – Juan finished the roof.


Somehow, however, by 4:30 we were standing inside the finished room with the new owners. It wasn’t much – no bigger than a single car garage – but, at that moment, it felt warm and welcoming. Miriam, with her two sons standing nearby, thanked us all and gave us letters of gratitude. In the letter, they asked that we never forget them because they would never be able to forget us.


Our departure was bittersweet. The three of them watched as we boarded the pickup truck. Every one of us knew that this would be the last time that we ever saw each other. A couple of the ‘Nova girls got teary eyed and most of our pickup ride back was spent in a contemplative silence.


I couldn’t feel sad, however. In fact, I felt the opposite. I thought the moment was beautiful. Their gratitude was so real, and our good intentions so visibly manifested.


One of the biggest parts of the most integral parts of the Villanova service-break trip experience is the nightly reflections that help the participants process their experiences from the day. I had joined them the night before and, in the silence of the pickup, I thought back to what was said. A couple people talked about how some people could have so little and be so happy. Another person or two talked about how maybe living simply is really the answer to it all. Other people talked about big words like “poverty” and “systemic problems.” The whole time as I sat there, however, it all felt off to me. It wasn’t that I disagreed with what people said; it was more that what they said didn’t feel right in my stomach. What can we really do? Can’t poor people and rich people be happy and can’t both be unhappy too? How can I change anything? Or can I even change anything? Is it my job to change things? There was too much going on inside my head that night and I couldn’t organize my feelings into coherent sentences. I decided to stay quiet, letting these questions settle.


As I stood in the back of the truck with the wind blowing on my dirty face, it all clicked. It all made sense. I’m not going to change the system, nor do I have to. The problems are simply too big to be tackled as problems. But I’m not helpless. What did we do for the family today? We built them a house, yes, but we did more. We told them that we believed they could have a better life and that they deserved a better life. We didn’t just do this with words; we did this with actions of immense generosity, giving our sweat, energy and love. But can’t we all have a better life? Can’t we all be happier, more satisfied people, rich, poor and middle-class alike? And after all, don’t we all have the ability to help each other reach our potential? Sure, building a house is a huge, tangible sign, but we don’t have to build a house for someone to bring out their best. And once they are freed from their demons, they can help liberate others, and so on. Laws won’t make changes and governments won’t make changes; it’s all on us, in our everyday lives.


The uneasiness in my gut from the night before finally settled and everything seemed clear. As the silence in the truck was broken, I just prayed that I’d have the strength to remember these lessons when they weren’t staring me in the face.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Las Rodas


“Hola Tom (prounounced Tome),” a voice on the other end of the phone said, “Soysergio.” “Cómo?” I responded, confused as usual. “Soy Sergio,” he repeated, It’s me, Sergio. “Ahhh, ¿cómo estás?” I asked, hoping I’d understand a bit better. I think he said he was on his way with his family to pick me up. I think they said we were going to have a picnic at Las Fuentes Gorginas – natural hot baths outside of Xela. I think he said they were going to be 15 or 20 minutes late, but with phone Spanish I’m never one hundred percent sure of exactly what is being said.


I met Sergio and his family two weeks prior and my relationship to him is quite complicated, so bear with me. He is the husband of the sister of the husband of a friend of a friend of my mother. Got it? About a month before I left for Xela, I met Donna and Alex, the aforementioned friend of a friend and her husband. Alex had migrated to the US in 1989 with some of his siblings when he was 19 years old. It just so happened that Alex grew up in Salcajá – a small city twenty minutes away from Xela – and that his mother, brother, and sister still lived there. I remember sitting in his kitchen in Colonia, dumbfounded as he told me his mother was willing to let me – essentially a complete stranger – stay in her place for as long as I wanted. “Whatever you need,” he told me as his young son gleefully ran up and down the stairs with various toy weapons, “you tell them and they will help you, I promise.”


I could’ve understood him telling me, “If you have an emergency, they will be there to help you,” or even “They would love to meet you for a cup of coffee,” but that they were opening up their home to a complete stranger with open arms was just beyond my comprehension. Nevertheless, I found myself waiting in my room with a bag packed to spend the night with them after a day at the hot springs.


My first encounter with them happened two weeks prior, when my Spanish was still in shoddy shape. I remember waiting for them in the rainy Parque Calvario, hoping that I heard correctly on the phone. All I got out of the conversation was “manaña” tomorrow, “las tres” at three, and “Parque Calvario” the Calvary Park, but it proved to be enough. At a quarter past the hour – or right on time according to the Guatemalan clock – they pulled up and hurried me into the car.


In the car, I didn’t understand much, but they were patient and laughed the entire way through the potentially awkward conversation. The words “generous” and “warm” cannot begin to describe this family. In Salcajá, they got me a private tour of the oldest church in Latin America – basically a box of a room with creepy dolls and too much gold on the altar. They took me to Marta’s house – Alex’s mom – and I couldn’t have received a better tour if I were a prospective buyer. Marta was going to visit family in the US for five months, but, in the mean time, I could have the house to myself if I so desired. Sergio and Lulu – Alex’s sister – brought me to their place, gave me cookies and milk, let me call the US, let me use the internet, and even gave me not one, but two cell phones that I could use while I was in Guatemala. All this and I could barely even converse with them. I had no idea what to make of it, but I thought it better just to be grateful and not question it too much.


Before I left that day we made plans to go to the Fuentes Gorginas in two weeks, and I could hardly believe that they were actually there, loading my backpack into the trunk along with a feast waiting to be cooked. They let me sit in the front with Sergio while the three ladies – Lulu, her daughter Lisa, her ten-year-old niece, and her expecting daughter-in-law whose name I still don’t know – squeezed in the back. The first time we were together, Sergio resorted to mere words to talk to me: “Está… calle,” he would say to me, pointing to the street. I was thrilled this time to find that we could now communicate in full sentences. In fact, I understood the majority of what was being said.


Miles outside of Xela, we climbed a narrow mountain road in our car, weaving through hillside farm fields and hugging the sulfur and egg-smelling cliffs. It was cloudy, but even the faint outlines of the not-too-distant mountains were still breathtaking. We approached the front gate, and without hesitation Sergio paid for all of us in the car. I had intended to pay, but I didn’t even get the chance. This was the first of many overly generous acts on the day.


We walked up the verdant paths lined with plants straight out of Jurassic Park on one side and small picnic/bungalow areas on the opposite one, until we reached the hot baths. I stripped down to my bathing suit and slowly submerged myself into the hot, hot water. The Rodas family quickly befriend a group of traveling Cuban doctors, and I floated on the outside of the conversation trying – but failing – to understand much of what was going on. The water felt great, but only for so long. Lisa and Lulu had a good laugh at how pink my feet were. Come to think of it, they had a good laugh at most things I said/did. Eventually Gilberto – Alex’s party loving brother – came with his wife and also with a fleece jacket for me to borrow. In the car I told them I had lost my jacket the night before and, within the minute, Lulu was on the phone with Gilberto asking him to bring me a sweater.


Eventually the rain came, and that was our cue to start the picnic. Like Andy commented my first week here, “When it rains here these Guatemalans don’t pack up and go home… they keep the party going.” And so we did. We crowded under a tiny and porous umbrella with a picnic basket filled with chips, tortillas, frijoles, salsa, guacamole, and – thankfully – a 1L bottle of gold tequila from Mexico. They asked me if I wanted a shot and I had to respond “¿Cómo no?” Why not? That shot turned into six or seven, and before long you couldn’t get me to stop speaking Spanish. We dined on delicious carne asada, more beans, guacamole, salad, tamales, and tortillas galore.


Gilberto, Sergio, Reginaldo – the father-in-law of Gilberto – and I walked up to the poolside bar and Gilberto treated me to a Brazo – the stout beer brewed by Gallo, the Guatemalan equivalent of Coors. We sat around BSing, and for once I didn’t feel so out of place. In typical machismo style they eyed up some gringa chica in the pool and egged me on to go join her. Sergio told us a story of his friend who snuck into the US to take a trip to Chicago. He couldn’t speak English and didn’t have ID, but somehow he made his way onto a plane from LA to Chicago. During the flight, the attendant asked him if he wanted chicken or beef. Sergio’s buddy couldn’t speak, so he did the next best thing. He flapped his arms and Brkcaaaaaawwww-ed like a chicken. Sergio must have told this story to at least four people today and he laughed harder and harder each time. Sitting there with my beer in hand, tequila in my belly, and quality company surrounding me, I couldn’t help but smile and laugh along.


We packed up shortly thereafter and in the car, as the Latin love ballads flowed from the speakers, I could not stay awake. I awoke when we pulled up to their house. I sat in the kitchen with Lulu and she had a cup of coffee waiting for me. I intended to read, but we just started talking for a bit. Sergio, waking up from a mini-nap, joined. Then their daughter Lisa. Then their son and his pregnant wife. We all talked about everything – family, life in the States, what I’m doing in Xela. The power went out, but the conversation continued. I joked about my dislike for boiled plantains and talked about how much I missed pancakes. Before I knew what happened, Lulu had a batch mixed and a pan on the stove waiting to cook some flapjacks. I felt bad when I realized she had only prepared them for me, but the syrupy buttermilk flavor in my mouth sent me soaring back to life in the US.


At 9, they took me to my house for the night. The power was out all over the city – all over Guatemala, it turns out – and we navigated the house with flashlights. They showed me to my bedroom and lit a candle for me by my bedside. I think they told me to come by in the morning when I woke up, but my mind was spent and my comprehension skills were dwindling.


As soon as they left, I dove into my queen-sized bed and sprawled out. As I laid there, more comfortable than I'd been in a month, I couldn't help but wonder why these people were being so unbelievably generous to me. I played through a bunch of scenarios in my head. I imagined myself, a good seventy-five pounds heavier, walking into their kitchen and saying "Mmmmmmm... something smells good in here." They would all giggle and speak to each other in a rapid indecipherable Spanish with forks and knives in hand. They would smile anxiously, their lips watering as they watched me sit. "So, what's for dinner?" I would ask innocently, completely unaware of the horrible fate I had just blindly walked myself into. "You are!" they'd shout before they pounced and feasted on some American meat.


Na... They don't seem like the cannibal-type, I told myself, laughing at how twisted my mind can get sometimes. Lying in the candlelight, I started having some more legit fears. I started thinking about how much of the language I didn't know. What if there's some cultural norm of courtesy to visitors that I don't know about? What if I'm unintentionally taking advantage of their good will to the max? After all I was ok with accepting some extreme generosity in a foreign land; but becoming a leech was a completely different story.


Na... I don't think I'm being rude. After all, they've insisted on most things when I've tried to decline, and the barbecue was their idea. There's got to be something though. Maybe they are just trying to butter me up to ask me for a big favor in return... like smuggling a relative or drugs into the US or something. After all, Sergio did ask me to help me write a letter in English to American cotton distrubuters in North Carolina and to help with a phone call.


Na, I thought again, that can't be it. Firstly, they have plenty of family legally in the states and don't have a problem getting there. Secondly, I chuckled to myself, they don't seem like the drug pedaling types. As far as the letter goes, I'd do that for a friend of a friend with no thought of asking for something in return.


Then it clicked. If I could do something for someone else just for the sake of being nice, why couldn't someone do the same for me? Maybe - just maybe - the Rodas family doesn't need to have some ulterior motive underlying and tainting their generosity. Why can't they just be very blessed people believe in sharing their good blessings with those around them. Maybe - just maybe - people can be good just for the sake of being good.